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Cathexis (episode)
When Voyager attempts to investigate the force that made Chakotay brain-dead, an unknown entity keeps turning them back. Summary Teaser having an out of body experience in the corridor]] Captain Kathryn Janeway is taking part in a holonovel when she is called to the bridge by Harry Kim, who announces that the shuttle Chakotay and Tuvok are in has appeared on long range sensors but is not not answered hails. The shuttle has taken damage with multiple hull fractures; Janeway orders the two to be beamed to sickbay when they are within range. In sickbay, The Doctor says that both Chakotay and Tuvok have taken blows to the head by an energy discharge of some kind. Tuvok incurs a concussion which is treatable, but Chakotay had been drained of all bio-neural energy from the brain and is in some form of a coma. Although the Doctor can keep the commander on life support, he declares that there is not much he can do because he is brain dead. Act One Tuvok retells explains what happened on the shuttle when they were attacked. He explains their unexpected encounter with a dark matter nebula, where an unknown vessel attacked them. He explains that he was barely able to set the shuttle on autopilot to return to Voyager. Janeway decides to return to the nebula to investigate and find the ship that attacked them. In sickbay, B'Elanna Torres uses a medicine wheel to aid Chakotay through a healing ritual he had previously taught her. Chakotay has always been a very spiritual man and she believes the Wheel and its grander meaning might be Chakotay's only chance now. She explains that when a person is sleeping or on a vision quest, it is said that he is walking the wheel and the placement of each stone acts as a signpost to help point the way back home. Kes, having a strange feeling that someone else is in her quarters, goes to the mess hall to tell Neelix. Janeway notes the nebula is emitting intense electromagnetic radiation that is preventing the sensors from detecting anything. Attempting to change the sensors to utilize a multiphasic bandwidth to penetrate the radiation, she suddenly "loses" the nebulaand discovers that Voyager has been put on a course away from it. They wonder who turned the ship around and find that the course change came from Tom Paris' station at the conn. Paris denies doing anything and faults the console. The captain orders Kim to transfer helm control to ops and resume their previous course while she orders Paris to helm control to see if there is something wrong with the ship's systems. After the ship shudders, however, Janeway discovers it has changed courser once again, and orders Kim to get the ship back on course – but this time helm doesn't respond because it has been locked. Act Two Tuvok investigates the source of the lockout and finds it came from navigational control on Deck 12. Paris returns to report he checked every ODN junction in helm control and found no problem. Tuvok establishes helm control once again and resumes course. Janeway asks Torres if anyone is currently at the navigational controls. Torres says that she in fact saw Paris there only a few moments ago. Paris is surprised and once again denies having been there and everyone is dumbfounded at the fact that he was at the navigational controls in both instances when the ship changed course. However, Janeway gives him the benefit of the doubt, ordering him to report to sickbay to check his memory. The Doctor runs some scans on Paris and reports to Tuvok that nothing out of the ordinary has been found. Tuvok, however, reports that his scans of the navigational controls reveal traces of Tom Paris' DNA. As the ship continues on course to the nebula, Tuvok indicates that he believes he has found the ion trail of the ship that attacked the shuttle leading back into the nebula. Noting the highly erratic flight path, Janeway suggests that the planetoids the trail bends around could be generating gravitational effects that cause currents within the nebula. She hypothesizes the route the unknown vessel took may be the only safe way through the currents. Before Janeway can order the ship to follow the ion trail, however, there is a massive energy drain throughout the ship. The warp core begins to shut down, causing Voyager to drop to impulse power. After getting no response from engineering, the captain and Tuvok head down to investigate. Janeway finds Torres at the warp core controls, where Torres has initiated an emergency warp core shutdown. Janeway explains to a baffled Torres that the engineer has crashed the main computer, locked out the bridge, and stopped the ship cold, for which Torres has no explanation. She cannot recall having done any of that. Janeway finally realizes that there is something very odd going on here, as Torres - after Paris - is the second person not remembering having input commands into the ship. In sickbay, The Doctor shows the captain the results of his scans of Torres' and Paris' memory engrams. The results show a different memory pattern during the exact timeParis allegedly changed the ship's course and lost recollection, and again when he was tampering in navigational control. Further, the same disruption has been found in Torres when she shut down the warp core. The Doctor explains further that the signature is bio-neural and he believes it to be another brain wave that has been superimposed onto theirs, believing an unknown alien entity having temporarily taken control of their bodies. Janeway observes that the alien seems intent to prevent Voyager from getting to the nebula, and that is possesses the ability to take control of anyone at any time, except for The Doctor. She decides it would be best to transfers all command codes to The Doctor for fear of the alien taking over any of the senior staff. Later, Kes catches up with Tuvok in the corridor, and reports that she has been sensing some strange things on the ship. Tuvok offers to meld with Kes to see if they can find the entity with Kes' telepathic abilities. But the two get no further than the turbolift, where Kim discovers them unconscious. Act Three In a darkened conference room, Tuvok explains that an energy discharge came out of the bulkhead and filled the turbolift, knocking them both unconscious, just as it had happened on the shuttle. Torres reports that they picked up no unusual readings from the internal sensors. Paris suggests the use of a magneton scanner in hopes that a more detailed scan may reveal the source of the discharge. Torres, however, proposes to use the magneton scanner on the entire ship all at once in order to detect the exact location of the entity. She asks Kim for his thoughts on the matter, when she notices that he is motionless and stares into space. Nervous that he might be possessed by the alien, Tuvok pulls his phaser out, while Torres conducts a personal scan via tricorder. Kim finally snaps out of his thoughts, explaining that he was merely pondering about a possible way to solve this and that he is not possessed. Janeway, disturbed by what just happened and the increasing paranoia, orders preparations for the magneton scan. While scanning Kes, the Doctor finds himself in the company of Neelix. Neelix recounts the strange behavior of every crewman on board, noting that Ensign Parsons ordered his pejuta cold instead of hot. After a brief debate on who really is paranoid, The Doctor explains that Kes hasn't suffered any permanent neurological trauma and that he will notify Neelix when she is revived. After Neelix leaves, Tuvok enters to modify the sensor array in sickbay for the magneton scan. The Doctor tells Tuvok that Kes' injuries don't match Chakotay's, pointing out contusions on her neck and shoulder that are consistent with something similar to a physical struggle. Tuvok informs the Captain that the magneton scan will be ready in two hours, and that its use will cause dizziness and disorientation throughout the ship. He further reports that The Doctor has found evidence that Kes' injuries were a result of a physical assault. Janeway suggests that because Tuvok wasn't assaulted, it is possible he injured Kes while under the influence of the entity. She calls sickbay to notify The Doctor to conduct a scan on the security chief, only to get no response. Janeway tries to activate the EMH and finds it has been disabled, and that the initialization routine has been locked with an encryption. It is proposed that by deactivating the Doctor, the alien forced the command codes back to Janeway. The captain suggests that because it is too dangerous for one person to have the command codes, they will be grouped and divided between herself and Tuvok. The two go back to the bridge to explain the situation, when the entity takes over Janeway and attacks Tuvok. A fight ensues. Tuvok tries to use his phaser but it is kicked from his hand by Janeway. Paris stuns the captain, and the entity jumps over to Kim, who pulls out his phaser to shoot Tuvok, but Paris knocks the phaser away from Kim and manages to subdue him. The alien then jumps to another bridge officer, who manages to get a miscalculated shot off at Tuvok before being pulled back by another crewman. Tuvok then stuns everyone on the bridge with his phaser set to full spread. Act Four In sickbay, Paris treats everyone's wounds while Kim tries to get The Doctor's program back on-line. Torres requests the captain's presence in engineering to explain that she found a discrepancy in the shuttle's internal sensor logs. After reviewing them, Torres explains that the logs weren't destroyed; rather, someone erased them then overloaded the sensor matrix to make it appear they had been damaged. Further, Torres says that she was able to reconstruct the events in the shuttle. She was able to confirm that they were at the dark matter nebula, and that there was an energy discharge that came from the nebula itself, but that there was no ship. Janeway wonders why Tuvok would like about that. She orders Torres to transfer controls for the magneton scan to the bridge once the sensors are ready to initiate the burst. On the bridge, Janeway asks Tuvok to locate the ion trail once again. Paris enters the bridge and tells the captain he has been studying the data The Doctor had been working on to discover the cause of Kes' injuries and relays to her that they were actually caused by a Vulcan neck pinch. Janeway asks Tuvok to explain, and he says that he has no knowledge of the event and offers the entity as an explanation. But Janeway confronts him with the fact that the entity keeps attacking him, even on three different occasions. Tuvok blames Janeway's questions on paranoia, but she elaborates further that she is unable to pick up the ion trail he says he found. He directs the captain to search the alpha-k band, where she finally finds the trail, but also notices the lack of any subspace distortions in the trail's wake, and notes that according to the readings it would have come from a ship without engines. Tuvok confronts the captain, suggesting that she is under the influence of the entity and that it is trying to prevent Voyager from entering the nebula. Relieving Janeway of command, he orders Kim to take the ship in, but Kim refuses. Tuvok then warns everyone that his phaser is set to wide beam dispersal and to kill, before taking command of the bridge and huddling everyone in a group where he can see them. Act Five Kim notices from a secondary console that the sensors are picking up highly coherent energy pulses with a biomatrix inside the nebula, suggestive of lifeforms, and that they are heading in Voyager s direction. Janeway asks Tuvok if the beings in the nebula are his people, assuming he is under the control of one of them, and Tuvok introduces them as the Komar and the nebula as their domain. Torres, in engineering, falls under the influence of the entity and ejects the warp core. She informs Janeway of what she has done, and Paris questions how it was possible of the alien to control Torres while it was controlling Tuvok at the same time. Kim suggest there may be two aliens on board. Then, Janeway realizes that Torres isn't authorized to eject the warp core on her own because that requires a command code authorization. She asks the computer who authorized the ejection of the warp core, to find it had been authorized by Commander Chakotay. The captain puts two and two together and realizes that the alien in Tuvok wants them in that nebula but that there is another presence that's been trying to keep them out and that it must be Chakotay who knows that they will be in danger if they go in there. She believes his neural energy having been displaced somehow and that as a result, he is able to move from person to person. Tuvok, upset at the turn of events, engages emergency thrusters. Janeway asks him whether the reason the Komar want Voyager is to extract everyone's neural energy. Tuvok explains that the collective neural energy of the crew would sustain his people for years to come. Janeway tells him that he doesn't have to do this and that maybe they can help them find another source of energy. But the ship keeps getting bombarded by the energy beams and realizing that reasoning won't get them anywhere, Janeway uses this time to activate the magneton burst from the command console, disabling Tuvok and releasing the alien controlling him. Paris tries to steer the ship out of the nebula but can't be sure which direction they are really going because of the complex course Tuvok had been following. Kim goes to reconstruct Tuvok's navigational logs. The entity, now identified to be the displaced neural energy of Chakotay, inhabits Neelix in sickbay, who approaches the medicine wheel and rearranges the stones into a pattern that Paris is able to recognize as a map of the dark matter nebula, allowing them to chart a way out. :"Captain's log. Stardate 48735.9. We have returned to the coordinates where we ejected the warp core and have successfully retrieved it. Now we are hoping the doctor will be able to successfully reintegrate Commander Chakotay's consciousness." After The Doctor successfully reintegrates Chakotay's consciousness, Janeway inquires as to what really happened in the shuttle. He explains he had the sensation of floating over his own body and thought he was dead. He couldn't speak or touch anything, but realized that if he could concentrate on someone in the same room with him, he could share their consciousness. He apologizes to Tuvok for having had to knock him around like that. Janeway welcomes him back but Chakotay says that he actually never felt like he had ever left. Log Entries *"Captain's log, stardate 48734.2. Sometimes it's a good idea to get away from being a captain for a while. To that end, I've started participating in a new holonovel. The setting is ancient England." *"Captain's log, supplemental. It appears that Mr. Tuvok and Kes were both hit by an unidentified energy discharge. Tuvok was not badly hurt, but Kes is in a coma." *"Captain's log, stardate 48735.9. We have returned to the coordinates where we ejected the warp core and have successfully retrieved it. Now we're hoping The Doctor will be able to successfully reintegrate Commander Chakotay's consciousness." Memorable Quotes "You might have asked before adorning my sickbay with animal remains." : - The Doctor "If you feel at any time, that any of us are under the influence of the alien, you can countermand our orders and take control of the ship. Do you feel up to it?" "Well of course, I make life and death decisions every day." "I feel better already." : - Captain Janeway, informing The Doctor about transferring command codes to him, with a comment from Tom Paris "Mr. Neelix, just because a man changes his drink order, doesn't mean he's possessed by an alien." : - The Doctor "Nevertheless, don't you think you should scan him or dissect him or something? Just to make sure." "I could examine every crewmember you've mentioned so far, every person on board for that matter and it wouldn't do any good. From what we can tell the alien can jump from person to person at will." "Sounds to me that you're ''defending Ensign Parsons." "''I'm not defending him, I'm just pointing out that you're acting a little paranoid. In fact, one could say that you're acting a little ''too paranoid." : - a paranoid '''Neelix' encouraging The Doctor to investigate the crew "Captain I believe you are having a typically Human response to circumstances which are frightening and inexplicable; commonly known as paranoia." : - Tuvok "According to these readings; it's a ship without engines..." : - Captain Janeway "How did you manage to reintegrate his consciousness?" "It involved three neural transceivers, two cortical stimulators, and fifty gigaquads of computer memory. I would be happy to take you through the process but it would take at least ten hours to explain it all to you. Needless to say it was a remarkable procedure. I would consider writing a paper about it, if there were a convenient forum in which to publish it." : - '''B'Elanna Torres' and The Doctor Background Information Story Development * The premise of this episode was thought up by Star Trek: Voyager supervising producer Brannon Braga and former Star Trek: The Next Generation writer/producer Joe Menosky (who was working in Paris, France during the first two seasons of Voyager but would later work on the series, on a regular basis, from its third season onwards). Regarding how he and Menosky came up with the story idea, Braga explained, "When Joe and I get the chance, which isn't often, we chat on the phone about ideas, and we thought we had a pretty cool variation on the 'alien among us' idea. In this case, the alien among us is ''one of us, which I thought was kind of fetching, and so we worked up the story together. What was appealing to us was, at the end, you realize the 'alien' is actually the disembodied consciousness of one of our crew members. What you think is a nefarious presence, and the incidents which you think are due to the nefarious presence, turns out to be one of us trying to warn us away from real danger. That was a really interesting dynamic." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #5, p. 49) * The experience of scripting the episode was not particularly enjoyable for Brannon Braga, however. He recalled, "I thought it was going to be horrible. I didn't have a good time writing it." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) * In common with the earlier first season episode , Brannon Braga and executive producer Michael Piller had creative differences over what direction the episode should take. Braga felt that the story suffered, as a result of this disagreement. (Star Trek Monthly issue 7) * According to Michael Piller, the episode was originally inspired by or, at least, had similarities with the novel , which has also been published and filmed under the title Ten Little Indians. Piller noted, "The idea of doing ''Ten Little Indians with the murderer changing places was a fascinating idea, but it got very complex and dry and was a hard premise to solve." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) * The story originally involved a plot point in which Tuvok was blinded by the phaser flash, disregarding the concept of the Vulcan inner eyelid, which had been established in and would be referenced years later in . Tuvok actor Tim Russ and director Kim Friedman were both concerned about this inconsistent plot point being included in the episode. Russ later recalled, "''The whole bridge scene with the phaser battle and stuff was different originally. It didn't make any sense. It wasn't consistent with Vulcan attributes, and we had to change it. I said to Jeri [Taylor], 'You cannot execute this kind of thing in the story because it makes no sense. It's not consistent. It's a physical fact.' In the script, they had Tuvok blinded by the flash, but Vulcans have a secondary eyelid to protect them, and that's been established. Amazingly, the director brought those points up in a story meeting .... We both were sort of in league for different reasons, but she brought it up in a story meeting, and they just basically dismissed her." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) Evidently, the producers later decided, however, to exclude the plot point from the episode. , and actress Kate Mulgrew in her Gothic costume]] * Janeway's holonovel was originally scripted (by Jeri Taylor) and filmed (under the direction of Winrich Kolbe) for the earlier first season episode , during whose development the Gothic setting replaced that of the Wild West. (A Vision of the Future - Star Trek: Voyager) The holonovel's final permutation in this episode seems to borrow elements from Charlotte Brontë's , Daphne du Maurier's , and Henry James' . Of Janeway's interest in holonovels, Jeri Taylor commented, "The holonovels are something that she does, like I read adventure novels and thrillers – as a stress reliever. So these are like reading in the twenty-fourth century. You go and you actually play one of the characters. So it's the only place where she can forget about being a captain for a couple of hours and get into a completely different situation, where she has a husband and she has children and she lives a life utterly unlike the one that she lives. It's more that kind of motivation than an intellectual curiosity about a period of history." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages, p. 158-159) * Regarding the concept of dark matter, science consultant André Bormanis stated, "We thought it might be interesting to introduce that idea on ''Voyager with a sort of a dark matter nebula or a 'black nebula,' as I believe we call it in the episode 'Cathexis. " (''Real Science With André Bormanis, VOY Season 2 DVD special features) Production * According to Tim Russ, the reason that Kim Friedman brought up the eventually-dropped plot point of Tuvok being blinded was "because she had problems with the scene because it didn't make any sense in terms of filming and blocking." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) * Supervising producer David Livingston had reservations about the use of Chakotay's medicine wheel in the episode. "I wanted to actually paint it onto the set," he recalled, "because it's what B'Elanna would have done. She doesn't care if she's defacing anything. She's going to come in and take care of her friend. They resisted it, and instead we had this piece of skin with a design on it hung in there. I think it would have been more fun if she had painted it onto the wall of the set regardless of the consequences." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) Music * Jay Chattaway composed the music for this episode and, of all the first season Voyager episodes he worked on, he cited this as having been his second favorite to write music for (with being his first choice). He remarked, "My second choice, and the one the producers gravitated towards, was 'Cathexis,' where there was an alien on the ship apparently moving from body to body. The music had to sell the fact that there was this invisible entity. It was a real mystery that made it a fun episode." (The Official Star Trek: Voyager Magazine, issue #4, p. 49) Reception * Michael Piller found the episode's logic problematic. He admitted, "There were logic problems. I was not comfortable with the logic of a lot of the things going on. And I thought that once the possessions became known, Janeway was acting like the alien through the whole thing. It just seemed like it was very eerie and moody, but there's not a lot of logic in the way the people were acting in the show .... It's one of my least favorite." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) * Jeri Taylor said the episode was "a show that sounded better in concept than it turned out to be." She continued, "Some people liked it, but I wasn't sure it was entirely successful. I thought it was a little confusing and so is the twist. It was talky and not as compelling as it should have been." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) * Brannon Braga was similarly critical of the episode, which he professed was "basically a twist on the alien-invasion story in that the alien is actually Chakotay's subconscious mind." He stated, "In the end ... it's really not about anything. Not my greatest shining moment. It's got tension and action at a point when we needed an infusion of that, but that's about it." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) "I hear a lot of people liked it ... but I thought it was too confusing," Braga also said, before conceding, "I guess it does have a spooky quality to it." (Star Trek Monthly issue 7) * Story editor Kenneth Biller thoroughly enjoyed the episode, but for other reasons. He commented, "I love the twist. I think it represented an interesting game of cat and mouse during a period when we were stuck doing a whole bunch of bottle shows." (Captains' Logs Supplemental - The Unauthorized Guide to the New Trek Voyages) Continuity * During this episode, Tuvok's rank switches from Lieutenant Commander to Lieutenant and back again a number of times. By the end of the episode, he is wearing the rank of Lieutenant. His rank remains that of Lieutenant until the fourth season episode , in which he is officially promoted to the rank of Lieutenant Commander. There is no scripted reason why Tuvok's rank changes during this episode, and it may be that it was simply an error in costuming for him to have been wearing a Lt. Commander rank for the first half of the first season; he is referred to as "Lieutenant" several times in earlier episodes, despite wearing Lieutenant Commander rank insignia. * While no explanation is given, Lieutenant Paris' rank is also dropped from full Lieutenant to Lieutenant J.G. in this episode. He would carry the latter rank continuously until , wherein he is demoted to Ensign and spends time in the brig. * This episode is similar to the classic episode in that, in both episodes, a crew member's consciousness is displaced from their bodies. * Janeway's holonovel later returns in both and . Video and DVD releases *UK VHS release (two-episode tapes, CIC Video): Volume 1.7, catalogue number VHR 4007, . *As part of the VOY Season 1 DVD collection. Links and References Main Cast *Kate Mulgrew as Captain Kathryn Janeway *Robert Beltran as Commander Chakotay *Roxann Biggs-Dawson as Lieutenant B'Elanna Torres *Jennifer Lien as Kes *Robert Duncan McNeill as Lieutenant Tom Paris *Ethan Phillips as Neelix *Robert Picardo as The Doctor *Tim Russ as Lieutenant Tuvok *Garrett Wang as Ensign Harry Kim Guest Stars *Brian Markinson as Lieutenant Peter Durst *Michael Cumpsty as Lord Burleigh *Carolyn Seymour as Mrs. Templeton Co-Star *Majel Barrett as Computer Voice Uncredited Co-Stars *Christine Delgado as Lieutenant Susan Nicoletti *Tarik Ergin as Ayala *Sue Henley as Ensign Brooks *Kerry Hoyt as Crewman Fitzpatrick *Julie Jiang as an operations division lieutenant j.g. *Louis Ortiz as Ensign Culhane *Simon Stotler as an operations division ensign *Unknown performers as **Bridget **Female command division ensign Stunt double *Unknown stunt performer as stunt double for Kate Mulgrew References Ayala; autopilot; biomolecular scan; bio-neural energy; Brown; cardiostimulator; Coyote Stone; cortical stimulator; dark-matter nebula; dilithium matrix; DNA; England; garlic soup; Hargrove; holocomic; holonovel; Komar; Ilidarian; lollipop; magneton scanner; medicine wheel; memory engram; Mountains of the Antelope Women; multiphasic scan; mutiny; Native American; neural transceiver; parity trace scan; Parsons; pejuta; phaser; planetoid; plasma relay; Vulcan mind meld; warp core ejection |next= }} de:Bewußtseinsverlust es:Cathexis fr:Cathexis nl:Cathexis Category:VOY episodes